MEP welcomes court ruling on holiday pay for long-term sick
Posted, November 22, 2011 @ 16:00
The European Court of Justice today (Tues) ruled that workers on long-term sick leave have no automatic right to continue accruing holiday entitlement year after year.
Instead, it said, individual countries should be allowed to set reasonable time limits on the entitlement of incapacitated employees to pay in lieu of leave once the individual returned to work or retired.
The ruling on EU law was over a test case in which a German worker was claiming a settlement of thousands of euros because he had been unable to take annual leave when on sick leave for six years.
Specifically, the court said: "In the case of a worker who is unfit for work for several consecutive reference periods, European Union law does not preclude national provisions or practices, such as collective agreements, which limit, by a carry-over period of 15 months on the expiry of which the right to paid annual leave lapses, the accumulation of entitlement to such leave."
Welcoming the decision, Julie Girling, Conservative employment spokesman in the European Parliament, said: "It is good to see the ECJ accepting common sense on a matter which could have had a damaging effect on businesses large and small.
"For a company to lose an employee on sick leave for for such a long time is challenge enough, but to then face an open-ended liability to pay that individual in lieu of annual leave would be adding insult to injury."